The Spectacle Blog

I got to see President Obama's response to Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu's speech while I was eating lunch. I'm surprised I managed to keep my food down.

Obama spoke to the media in the Oval Office before meeting with new Defense Secretary Ash Carter. While the headlines from Obama's response was that Bibi offered "nothing new" and had "no viable alternatives" to the administration's present course of action, I was struck by something else Obama said in response to a question from Julie Pace of the AP about the appropriateness of Netanyahu's speech. Here is the part that caught my attention:

And I think it's important for us to stay focused on the problem at hand. And the specific problem that is being debated right now is not whether we trust the Iranian regime or not -- we don’t trust them. It's not whether Iran engages in destabilizing activities -- everybody agrees with that. The central question is, how can we stop them from getting a nuclear weapon.

Benjamin Netanyahu is basically a badass. His speech today, in front of a joint session of Congress, delivered what was expected and, hopefully, has changed the focus of the conversation over Iran from one of whether the speech was appropriate, to whether the administration's actions can possibly have any effect on Iran's nuclear weapons program. The answer to the later is, quite obviously, from Bibi's speech and elsewhere, pretty much "no."

After nearly six weeks worth of temper tantrums from the Obama Administration and other Democrats because House Speaker John Boehner had the temerity to invite Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to make his case against a nuclear deal with Iran Bibi spoke his peace this morning.

Let me make the following three observations.

First, given the attacks Netanyahu has sustained against his integrity and judgment by the Obama Administration, he has every right to strike back with vengeance. Instead, Netanyahu killed President Obama with kindness making a point of thanking him for assistance during the 2010 Carmel forest fire, the 2011 siege of the Israeli Embassy in Cairo and for missile interceptors against Hamas last year.

I'm sure this only infuriated Obama more because he knew what was coming.

Second, Netanyahu made a point of linking Iran with ISIS:

Don’t be fooled. The battle between Iran and ISIS doesn’t turn Iran into a friend of America.

Now we know why Barry didn’t want Bibi to address the Congress. Netanyahu’s analysis of the Middle East, Israel, and Iran featured both coherence and purpose, two things missing from this administration’s foreign policy. The stark difference in approach might be what one would expect as between a commando and a community organizer.

House Republicans have until Friday to decide how best to recover from the Senate's capituation to Democratic demands over funding the Department of Homeland Security, but it seems they'd prefer to simply get the inevitable over with.

After months of indecision and strife, Boehner told GOP lawmakers he plans to allow a vote as early as Tuesday on a clean bill to fund the Homeland Security Department through the rest of the fiscal year, dashing the hopes of conservatives who want to tie the money to language clocking President Obama’s executive actions on immigration…

“So he just caved in there,” Rep. Tim Huelskamp said of Boehner, adding: “Guess he forgot that a number of us had recommended that this was a poor strategy back in December."...

Back when Rep. Trey Gowdy seemed to be prolonging an investigation into Hillary Clinton's communications with regards to the Benghazi incident, many thought it was merely to justify the new haircut he'd gotten for the occasion. Now, it turns out, Gowdy was not only doggedly pursuing a very obviously missing link in command, but that he'd stumbled on a fluke of Clinton's government employment strategy.

Hillary Rodham Clinton exclusively used a personal email account to conduct government business as secretary of state, State Department officials said, and may have violated federal requirements that officials’ correspondence be retained as part of the agency’s record.

This morning my newest article focused on the cowardice of Democrats unwilling to attend Benjamin Netanyahu's speech tomorrow, twelve more Democrats have declared they are not amenable to reason including Minnesota Senator Al Franken. In all there are 50 Democrats who will not be in attendance including Vice-President Biden in his capacity as President of the Senate. Here are the cowards in all their glory:

I'm not sure what's left to destroy with shark-laden killer tornados that hasn't already been soundly demolished, but SyFy is girding its loins for Sharknado 3, the latest installment in their campy, celebrity cameo-laden C-movie series that features Ian Ziering and Tara Reid, among others, battling the murderous sea-faring creatures as they lay waste to the nation's metropolises.

This time, though, the sharks will be taking on Washington DC, and there they'll face an awfully formidable foe: Vice President Ann Coulter.

Mark Cuban and Ann Coulter have joined the growing list of guest stars for the third TV movie in the phenomenon, The Hollywood Reporter has learned.

Launching in July, Sharknado 3 will be set in Washington, D.C., this time and, per Syfy, will "cause mass destruction in the nation's capital" before it roars down the Eastern Seaboard.

Entrepreneur/Dallas Mavericks owner Cuban of Shark Tank will play the president, while conservative commentator/author Coulter will play the veep.

Warren Buffett is really looking forward to 2016. Sure, the Buffett rule didn't work out - partly because it turns out his secretary only pays more in taxes than he does because his wealth is packed into capital gains - but he's already hedging his bets that Hillary Clinton's administration will have a more favorable bent towards his ideas. In fact, he just loves Hillary Clinton, and thinks that, without a doubt, she'll be the next President of the United States.

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